Jurassic World

Review by Matt Finley

The first time we see Jurassic World - an upscale corporate hellscape complete with chain restaurants and tacky bars (Clevelanders, imagine Crocker Park with the odd Stegosaur lumbering past Abercrombie) - is in a soaring pan over with John Williams' iconic clarion score blaring. Is this trenchant irony or is everyone involved in JURASSIC WORLD (the fourth film in the Jurassic Park series) just that oblivious to what made its precursor trumpet-worthy?  

For a movie that devotes so much of its early runtime to (overly) pointed conversations about the increasing public demand for sensational spectacle and ante-upping (ahem) sequels to familiar animals, it's more than a little disappointing how quickly director Colin Trevorrow's (SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED) film divests itself of satirical potential in exchange for an extended, lukewarm nostalgia bath. But at least there are plenty of mindlessly engaging bath toys

Escape Plan

Review by Bob Ignizio

Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger join forces to bust out of an inescapable prison in ESCAPE PLAN. Ray Breslin (Stallone) helps find the weak spots in maximum security prisons by going inside and seeing if he can break out. Which, of course, he almost always does. He's Stallone, what did you expect? After completing yet another routine assignment, Breslin and his partner Lester (Vincent D'Onofrio) are approached by CIA agent Jessica Miller (Caitriona Balfe) to test a new super prison designed to secretly hold the kind of prisoners deemed too dangerous to even be given trials. Against the protests of his assistants Hush (50 Cent) and Abigail (Amy Ryan), Breslin agrees to take the job.

Kill the Irishman

Review by Charles Cassady Jr.

I've applied for scores of jobs of every description here since the 1980s. It's quite crushed my spirit, unending boot-stomp-in-the-face employment turn-downs in work for which I was highly qualified. In my imaginings, there would be a job that required a successful applicant have (1) MY Social Security Number, (2) MY name, (3) MY iris pattern, (4) MY fingerprints, (5) MY ribonucleic acid-DNA sequences. Human Resources would still hire someone else. Most likely, given what I've observed, someone else who was a young female.

So it was with grim satisfaction I learned the true-crime drama KILL THE IRISHMAN, a 100 per cent Cleveland-content feature, set in Cleveland, based on a Clevelander's book, telling a great Cleveland saga...had rejected this city in favor of shooting almost entirely in Detroit, where a special Michigan film tax at the time offered more incentives to the production outfit. I did jam a little on the idea that Cleveland, source of my despair, got the same leper treatment. Maybe "The LeBron James Story" will lens in Akron and Florida, deciding his Cavaliers period was not worth mentioning.